Alharthi, Booth Win Man Booker International

Author Jokha Alharthi and translator Marilyn Booth have won the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for Celestial Bodies, which is published by Sandstone Press in the U.K. Alharthi is the first Arabic author to win the prize and the first Omani woman to have a novel translated into English. The £50,000 prize, which celebrates translated fiction, has been divided equally between its author and translator. Each shortlisted author and translator also received a further £1,000 for being shortlisted.

Alharti is the author of two other novels, two collections of short fiction, and a children’s book. Her work has been published in English, German, Italian, Korean, and Serbian. An award-winning author, she has been shortlisted for the Sahikh Zayed Award for Young Writers and won the 2010 Best Omani Novel Award for Celestial Bodies. Booth is an American academic and translator from the Arabic, a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the Oriental Institute.

Celestial Bodies tells of family connections and history in the coming-of-age account of three Omani sisters. It is set against the backdrop of an evolving Oman, which is slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, at the crossroads of its complex present.